Bungie's Marathon Trilogy Is Now Free For All PC Platforms

Before there was Halo, there was Marathon. The sci-fi FPS for Xbox that catapulted Bungie Studios into the game biz limelight wasn't exactly a follow-up to the studio's Marathon games, but you can feel the DNA of Master Chief's adventures woven into the fabric of the earlier releases. Now, anyone with a computer can find that out for themselves, as all three Marathon games are available as free downloads.

The release is possible thanks to the efforts of an open-source developer community for Aleph One, a game engine built out of Marathon 2's source code that's been optimized for modern-day PCs. The three games -- Marathon, Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity -- are available for PC, Mac and Linux platforms, and they all sport features like OpenGL shader support, Internet co-op and multiplayer, modern mouse-look, gamepad support, HD textures and user mods, a press announcement reveals. The pack also includes v1.0 of the Aleph One engine. You can download the full package right here.